Identify, do you?

Well,

finally the time has come to snicker at jaundice and move back to the hostel.

it's a happy happy feeling.

2 weeks of uninterrupted formal education left.

monday onwards must get back to college to attend the last 2 weeks.

went to college yesterday. there was a documentary screening for one of my courses: Economics of Discrimination.

The documentary dealt with Caste Discrimination in India.

A few things were nothing new to me, a few things were shocking, but the rest of it taught me a lot. A lot more than I had bargained for.

It changed my mind to the extent that I have become very pessimistic about the whole issue. For me it is almost like we are stuck in a rut that can never change. We are stagnating.

In my urban upbringing i have been exposed to a lot of religious variety.

I am born in a Hindu family. I went to Christian convent schools. I practise Buddhism and well, I have a Muslim boyfriend. It's religious riot in my life.

Riot because I am an Indian and religion has far reaching influence in shaping people's personalities.

I kind of realised that I'm in for trouble. BIG time!

My upbringing has been such that I have nothing common with the people around me in terms of my views, my ideals, and more importantly my exposure.

But don't I identify with people?

It is the problem of plenty.

I identify with too many people, in small bits.

In the end I don't identify with anybody sufficiently enough.

And hence I stand in this mess, all by myself.

Carving out my unique identity each day, which pushes me farther away from the sea of people that I marginally identify with.

Alone and yes, a bit lonely

Ups and downs are but a part of life.

Ill-health features sometimes in it too.

Like bad weather, bad mood, falling sick is unavoidable too.

I am down with jaundice right now. Yes, all yellow :-/

Nothing that I am particularly enjoying.

But introspection has been my key occupation while I study bit by bit for my exam in this while.

Understanding a few old ties, unmasking a few old feelings locked far away in some dark corner, undoing a few old mistakes..it's all been rejuvenating.

As the jaundiced body overcomes its illness, the fatigued mind learns a lot, tries to overcome its failings, insecurities.

But overcoming the insecurities is the most difficult task of them all.

It challenges the status-quo of the mind, the mind which refuses to let go of the hurt and the lessons learnt wrong. 

Your insecurities mirror but the deepest fears that you have, the chains that bind you so hard, so deep that you don't consider them alien to yourself.

Breaking those shackles are difficult but definitely not impossible. Perseverance and patience are the orders of the day.

Every single day I face my deepest fears, staying put in the limits of the four walls, away from my hostel room, away from the smiling assuring faces of the friends who are more than my sisters now.

Yes, I face them by myself, away from parents, family, friends. I face them ALONE.

This is the first time I could really understand the profoundness of my pet dialogue "Alone, but never lonely!"

Because this is the first time, I am alone as well as lonely.

No I have lots of people around me, but the ones that I look for are not near, are not close-by.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say, but doesn't distance also tear you apart?

Today my boy friend came down to visit me, it was lovely to see him after 2 weeks. yeah, 2 weeks, that's right!

It's a new love, the fire is there, the warmth most welcoming, but the insecurities lurk too, they newness of it all along with the distance hinders communication at some level.

Insecurities along with ego and hindered communication can flare up some undesired emotions, some unfinished fights..but isn't overcoming all of that a part of the introspection and rejuvenation of the self that I am undergoing?

But seriously, looking all so yellow is not doing any good to my insecurity overcoming agenda, it's hard work.

Fighting the negativity, as I wake up every morning.

Being the cheerful self that seems too far fetched at this time, yes it is hard work. Counting days of my captivity in the confines of my room while I recover from this illness.

Yet I strive on. Put a smile on that face each day with no hopes of really going anywhere. Comb my hair, because it is what I am expected to do right now.

I don't feel like doing any of the things that my normal self wants more than gladly to do. Spending hours in front of that full-length mirror in my hostel room was definitely one of them! But right now, it's a painful routine that I am merely "following" not really "doing" what I do.

I miss every little bit of my "daily" life. It is simple and I never appreciated it in the the true spirit of appreciation that it deserves.

I also realise one very hard truth.

Survival of the fittest. You are left behind if you are unable to keep up. Sooner or later, my dear.

Darwin was a smart man, eh?

He presented to the world the true nature of the Nature.

He was indeed a very smart man. The funniest thing is, though we were taught of this particular law of nature in the high school, the profoundness of it in our lives does not dawn upon us until it is lost in obscurity with the passing of time.

No, I don't point fingers at anyone, I am not at all bitter, or angry at friends who I hold responsible for leaving me out. I am just aware that everybody has a life, a set of constraints to abide by, and operate under, just because my life has halted and I am on a forced "sabbatical" doesn't mean it should be the case with others.

So the lesson learnt is, keep up, my good friend, progress, only then can you be truly happy.

The universe has its own rhythm and it is for us to tune into that, because infinitely powerful though we might be to affect our own lives, insignificant is what we are when trying to affect others because we think we are all important.

That's the lesson well learnt in this forced break.

Much appreciated, life!